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a unique engagement

All this wedding business has got me thinking of how Chikezie and I got engaged.

After almost 5 months apart, he was finally making his first trip home to Iowa. We'd been talking about getting engaged for awhile but were finally really serious about it. We'd decided when Chikezie came home we'd go to the jewelry store to get the ring, go out for dinner and just be "officially engaged" after that point. I'm not big on surprises and didn't want some big cheesy event. I don't know. I'm just not into that. Whatever.

So I went to the jewelry store to scope out rings before he got there so we didn't have to waste any time trying to figure out what I wanted. I tried on tons of rings and initially just wanted a band with diamonds on it. Very simple. Probably what most people would use as the wedding band. I'd pretty much had my mind made up and then went to the "bigger" rings just for fun.

I saw this one and fell in love:

So a few nights before Chikezie was to come home we were having our usual Skype date. We'd been communicating mainly through Skype the whole 5 months. His work ours were until 6 or 7 which would put him home at 8 or 9 (central time) every night. We only got to talk late at night so it was easiest and cheapest to Skype chat while I worked on homework and he ate dinner.

Chikezie's screen shot of our Skype chat.

As most nights, I was tired and grouchy and ready for bed. Chikezie was feeling really fiesty and kept "fake proposing to me". He'd say "What if I proposed to you on Skype?" And I'd tell him he couldn't because he didn't have the ring. Then he kept pulling up things that were box shaped and trying to trick me into thinking he had something. I was getting annoyed. I wasn't even looking at the chat window anymore. I was probably scouring Facebook or researching for my class.

Chikezie continued being annoying. He kept telling me just to open the chat window and look just one more time. We kept arguing back and forth because I was tired of messing around and knew he wasn't proposing. Finally, just to get him off my back, I opened the chat window and saw this:

Wait, what? I thought it was a picture or something! Nope. It was a ring. It was THE ring I'd picked out at the jewelry store earlier that week.

Then he blabbed something about loving me and somehow asked me to be his wife. To be honest I was in such shock and confusion I really wasn't listening! And then I started ballingsobbing crying.

Don't you love all of my ridiculous cry faces?

Then Chikezie proceeded to explain how he got the ring. He'd called the jewelry store right before they were ready to close. He asked if there was any way they could Fed-Ex the ring to him so it could be there by Friday when he was flying back. The sales associate that had helped me in the store pulled out all stops and got the ring to Chikezie in California like the next day.

Chikezie told me that when the ring arrived, he carried it in his pocket that whole day at work. It must have been burning a hole in his pocket! He was going to wait to propose to me at the airport (which I'm glad he didn't because his flight was delayed and re-routed a bunch of times and he didn't get in until 2 am) but if you know Chikezie he SUCKS at keeping secrets. He has to buy me Christmas and birthday presents like...the day of because he can't stand the suspense.

His Skype proposal was PERFECT. It was so unique and totally us. Skype was such a huge part of our relationship through probably our toughest time and it was what helped us through that long 5 months. The only sucky part was that I had to wait a few days for the ring because he was still in California! But I had something to keep me company while I waited:

The next day he sent me these dozen roses to work.

Even though I told him he didn't have to...I already said yes!

We were finally able to see each other a few days later after his flight FINALLY arrived in Des Moines. It was 2 in the morning. We were exhausted...but were so amped up to see each other. We were shaking with excitement as I hugged him when he got off the plane. We walked to my mama van and I put the ring on in the car, in the parking garage, in the dark. We kissed. It was perfect.

A few days after he got to Iowa, we took some of these pictures with his iphone on my grandma's front porch on a rainy afternoon. Rainy days are our favorite.

Man, I'm a lucky girl :)

11 comments
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that is so sweet! I love to read proposal stories, because every couple is so different! You can read about mine here: http://corralderekandmegan.blogspot.com/2010/06/september-12-2008-proposal-story.html

Mandey, Another gorgeous story of your unique and exciting life. Bloody Skype! Who'd have thought it? I love that he took photos of your face for you to see. I love that he got THE ring. Very sweet stuff.